This is a slim case for the Teenage Engineering series of Pocket Operators with numerical buttons that is inspired by the official Teenage Engineering CA-X case.

I was looking for a slim case for my pocket operators, but all the cases I found on Printables, Thingiverse, etc., were too bulky for me. So, I modeled this case from scratch in Fusion 360 to be printable in one go with a multi-materials system (I used the Bambu Lab P1S with AMS) and without the need to print buttons separately. The buttons in this case are attached to the upper part of the case with thin bridges, so they don't fall out. You also don't have to break off the hanger tab at the top!

The print comes in three parts: Upper, Lower, and Battery Cover. The Upper part of the case has supports modeled in, as well as support interface layers. The interface layers are meant to be printed with a support material (I tried PETG with limited success, don't have PLA support material yet). Eventually, I decided to try and scale down the support interface layers in the z-direction, so there are three “empty” layers above it, and that worked just fine for me (I selected all support interface layers and reduced their z-height to about 94%). The 3mf file for the Upper case is all set up to be printed with Orcaslicer on a Bambu Lab P1S with AMS and a 0.2mm nozzle, just using PLA.

If you're printing this with my 3mf file, you'll have to carefully release the buttons first before tearing out the rest of the supports. I used a dental pick to gently pry them off the support interface while holding the rest of the button down with my finger. The buttons are attached with a thin bridge to the main Upper case, so be careful or you'll rip out the buttons altogether (had that happen, too – you can glue them back on with superglue, but it's not pretty).

If you're setting up your print from scratch, make sure to either use support material for the interface layers (they will show up as “PETG (#)” in your slicer) or reduce their z-height a bit, so there's a space between the top layer of the interface and the bottom layer of the actual parts.

The actual supports should be set up to be printed with a single perimeter, two bottom and top layers, and 4% infill, I used aligned rectilinear pattern.

You can play around with the top surface patterns to get a different “look” of the case. I really liked the Hilbert Curve pattern, but it messed up the pocket operator logo at the top. I eventually ended up with Octagram Spiral, and I think it looks great!

Choose your own colors for the pocket operator logo, the button text, and the button cover for the record button. I just mirrored the colors of the official case because I had one already. Now all my POs look similar, see picture.

The Lower part of the case is a straightforward print – I printed it with tree supports on build plate only (there are some locking tabs that have 90º overhangs, so supports are necessary for a clean print so the case closes tightly after printing). The lower part will snap onto the upper part. You may have to slightly bend the sides out of the way to thread the 1/8" jacks of the PO through the Lower part.

The Battery Cover is printed from TPU, so it's flexible and can be removed to change batteries. It fits snugly, so it doesn't fall off.

I'm including the Fusion 360 file in case you'd like to edit the design yourself (e.g., remove the slots for the hanger tab etc.)

Let me know in the comments how it goes – would love to see your pictures!